Ngwatilo

Broken concrete.
Hiding place of memory.
That which can be rebuilt.

The fall
is a dark red film to see through.
It colour’s everything that was

before. Shattered windows obscure,
dumb into silence. Their screams
reverberate and cut like frozen water.
They bruise, and do not clean.

The paths of evaporating tar
burnt and broken – perpetually
trembling – endure wrath faithfully.

Memory is eroded here, deleted.

We will spend decades collecting
glass, cutting our hands; scabbing.
Learning to see with no dark redness,
intermittently turning blocks of concrete

over and touching a skull or two
when we can. Their cavities resonate
with weeping and motion. Or it is we
who have become an echo.

What does one return to reclaim?